problems, especially in overcrowded working-class areas. Malnutrition and opium-smoking were major social woes during this period. Society As early as 1827, the Chinese had become the largest ethnic group in Singapore. During the earliest years of the settlement, most of the Chinese in Singapore had been Peranakans, the descendants of Chinese who had settled in the archipelago centuries ago, who were usually well-to-do merchants. As the port developed, much larger numbers of Chinese coolies flocked to Singapore looking for work. These migrant workers were generally male, poor and uneducated, and had left China (mostly from southern China) to escape the political and economic disasters in their country. They aspired to make their fortune in Southeast Asia and return home to China, but most were doomed to a life of low-paying unskilled labour. Until the 20th century, few Chinese ended up settling permanently, primarily because wives were in short supply. The sex ratio in Singapore's Chinese community was around hundred to one, mainly due to restrictions that the Chinese government imposed, up until the 1860s, on the migration of women. Malays in Singapore were the second largest ethnic group in Singapore until the 1860s. Although many of the Malays continued to live in kampungs, or the traditional Malay villages, most worked as wage earners and craftsmen. This was in contrast to most Malays in Malaya, who remained farmers. By 1860, Indians became the second largest ethnic group. They consisted of unskilled labourers like the Chinese coolies, traders, soldiers garrisoned at Singapore by the government in Calcutta, as well as a number of Indian convicts who were sent to Singapore to carry out public works projects, such as clearing jungles and swampy marshes and laying out roads. They also helped construct many buildings, including St. Andrew's Cathedral, and many Hindu temples. After serving their sentences, many convicts chose to stay in Singapore. As a result of the administration's hands-off attitude and the predominantly male, transient, and uneducated nature of the population, the society of Singapore was rather lawless and chaotic. Prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse (particularly of opium) were widespread. Chinese criminal secret societies (analogous to modern-day triads) were extremely powerful; some had tens of thousands of members, and turf wars between rival societies occasionally led to death tolls numbering in the hundreds. Attempts to suppress these secret societies had limited success, and they continued to be a problem well into the